


Do Not Go Gentle

by allsorrowsborne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, POV Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, S2x08, Villanelle's Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23055712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsorrowsborne/pseuds/allsorrowsborne
Summary: Tender and twisted death fic. Eve is dying. Villanelle is feeling. A rumination on dying and loving and letting go, as if the S2 finale had been the end. AKA a one-shot on that one shot.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 20
Kudos: 89





	Do Not Go Gentle

\---

Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rage at close of day

Rage rage against the dying of the light

_Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle,” 1947. A Classic Villanelle._

\---

Eve is dying. It isn’t so bad. Don’t be afraid.

She knew it was coming. She had turned her back on Villanelle and walked away, leaving her abandoned and armed. Eve knew what she was doing. She did not care.

The gunshot was no surprise.

It hurt, for sure. Blackout pain. Pressure and denseness and something on fire. She could’ve screamed, roaring to the gods, but she wouldn’t give Villanelle that satisfaction. Much better to suck it down, turn it inward, go half mad from the noise.

Her vision constricted and her head span. Blood jackhammered her brain. Consciousness deserted her body, a rat running from a sinking ship, sending her tumbling head-over-heels. Light stuttered, pinpricked, and vanished from the world.

Then there was nothing.

Did she pass out? She doesn’t know.

She is conscious now, somewhat, barely, her body sprawled face down in the dirt.

She hasn’t moved since Villanelle shot her. Nothing has moved, except blood that flows from her wound like wine, creating muddy pools around her hips.

She cannot feel its wetness, its stickiness. She cannot feel anything beneath her waist. Disappointing. She would like to know how it feels.

She wonders what it looks like, her lifeblood as it ebbs away. Is it different than blood from the nick of a razor? Different than blood from a bloody nose? Darker than the surface stuff, surely. She wants to bear witness. She wants to know everything. But it’s too much effort to move.

She is getting weaker.

The sun begins its slow descent.

\---

How long has she been here? Too long. No-one will come for her. Nobody knows. This is her secret. And Villanelle’s. Why does that make her feel at peace?

Where is Villanelle? Eve hadn’t expected her to stay, of course. Even before the bullet entered, she knew that this was the end of their game, not merely the latest move. Had Villanelle won? Had she? Perhaps they had both given up, upended the chessboard, walked away. Either way, she knew that Villanelle would exit. Things to arrange, things to forget.

Still.

It might be nice if she were here now. Not to save her of course. Eve doesn’t want that. But to keep her company for a while, maybe. To hold her hand.

\---

_You said I couldn’t feel it. You said I didn’t know what it meant. You are so stupid, Eve. I can feel it. I can feel all kinds of things._

_I feel things with my fingers._

_I feel the pressure and pop of a champagne cork. I feel condensation on a car window where I long to write your name. I feel the cold metal of cutlery warming to my touch in your kitchen. I feel the desperate flutter of a butterfly’s wing before I pluck it off._

_I feel silk sheets balled in my fists. Tangled curls. I feel women like the inside of a pumpkin._

_I feel life quicken, falter, stop. I feel the balance of all things shift as all things sift through my fingers._

_I feel limits and potential in the bristle of Konstantin’s beard._

_I feel the sharp crust of the bread you passed me, the sticky juice from an apple I left you, the tickle of glitter that I sprinkled onto a homemade necklace to get closer to you._

_I feel the dampness of your skin as I unzip your dress, prickles of sweat as you go into shock. I feel your shock like an earthquake that makes my fingers flex and hold on tight._

_I feel more in my little finger than you have felt in your whole shitty life._

_Sometimes I feel phantoms. I do not like that feeling. But you are not a phantom, Eve._

_Not yet._

\---

Eve wonders if she’s being passive.

What had Villanelle said, the last time Eve thought she was close to death? “You’re too easy, Eve.” Eve smiles inwardly. She is anything but easy. But maybe she should try harder right now? Maybe she should try to save herself? 

She cannot move her body to stand but perhaps she can drag herself along the ground, army crawling through the tunnels of Rome, a slug trail of blood in her wake?

No. She remembers Villanelle’s words as they’d moved through that darkness earlier, danger and romance dancing on her tongue. “Do you think if we died down here anybody would notice?” No. Nobody would notice. Eve would die in the tunnels alone.

She tries to turn her head to the sky. She fails. That’s OK. She remembers what it looks like. She recalls its expanse. And she can still hear the birds calling overhead.

Eve would not move, even if she could. This is a fine place to die.

\---

She remembers a middle-school history assignment, a research project on ancient Rome. Bored by emperors and political intrigue, she uncovered stories of female gladiators. The Ludia. Something like that. Thirteen years old. She ate it up. Their weaponry and armor. Their extensive training and impressive skill. They were expensive. Valuable to their handlers. Their battles were bloody and sometimes fatal.

At school, in the classroom, she thought of their motives. Why did they do it? Adventure? Coercion? Boredom? Debt? For homework, she wrote of their feelings, fighting, bleeding, performing violence as crowds cheered on. At night, in bed, she fantasized of women in armor, brandishing weapons, as she rocked back and forth with a pillow between her thighs.

Did Ludia fight here in these ruins, spilling blood on the ground where she lies? Does her blood now mingle with theirs, as her ancient battle comes to an end?

Her ancient battle. Seriously? Eve scoffs at her hubris, her own inflated self-importance. She would roll her eyes, but her body no longer complies with her brain. No matter.

Her eyes loll of their own accord.

\---

_I found us a way out, Eve. I told you I would. I would never let you down. You should have been happy, but you were too angry. You are scary when you’re angry, Eve. You are beautiful too._

_Your voice was so deep, so fierce. Unyielding. I like that voice, Eve. I want you to use it when you tell me to undress, OK? When you open me up in ways that cannot be stitched. Will you do that for me, Eve? I know you want to, but you are so weird about doing what you want. Why do you make it so complicated? You make me dizzy, Eve. I like it. But then I do not._

_Did you see where we were? Did you see the sky? The ruins? I think it was a battlefield, Eve. I shot you on a battlefield! It wasn’t the scene I imagined, but we played our parts beautifully, yes? You were so passionate. I was so cold. I shot with precision and you fell with grace. We were in sync, Eve, soulmates on fire doing crazy things. Imagine what else we could do with each other._

\---

The wind picks up. Eve flashes back in time, riding in the car with her mom. What was that song they’d always sing? She can hear it now. Love is a battlefield? Eve groans inwardly. She was 6 or 7 when it was popular, her mom blasting it in on the car stereo, urging Eve to sing along.

Not that Eve needed encouragement. She would roll down the window and lean out of the car as far as she could, the wind wrenching the skin from her cheeks and snarling her hair. And then she’d sing at the top of her lungs, her mom and Pat Benatar not far behind: “We are young, heartache to heartache, we stand, no promises, no demands.”

Eve is not young now. She hasn’t been for a long time. What is she instead? Middle-aged? A middle-aged woman in a midlife crisis? Is that what this is? She abandons her husband, travels through Europe, falls in love with a younger woman. Wait. Had she fallen in love? Whatever. She doesn’t have time for that now. 

Is she still middle-aged when she won’t get older? Is it still mid-life when life stops here? Eve is too tired to follow the riddles of her own logic. She thinks back to the car of her childhood, the wind on her face, her mom at the wheel: _“_ We are strong, no one can tell us we're wrong, searching our hearts for so long, love is a battlefield.”

\---

_Do you think you can make me feel small, Eve? Do you think you can chase me and find me and want me and touch me and then tell me I made it all up? I will not let you do that, Eve. I will not let you lie._

_Sometimes you are so much like Anna._ _Thinking that you are a rational adult and I am a delusional, infatuated child._

_She told me that I made it up too. She brought me into her home and her body and I felt her feelings with my fingers and she said they were not real. I made it up, I made her do it. I was her devil like I am your psychopath. She pitied me sometimes. She hated me more. She always begged me to do it again._

_I believed her, Eve. I was so young! Barely more than a child. A clever, beautiful, manipulative, gullible, monster child. Do you think about that, Eve? Old old Eve. I do. I do not need to tell you how often._

_I am not a child now._

_Am I a monster? Are you? I could do such terrible things to you Eve, I would never turn my back before we were done. I would show you how to enjoy it, the movement of monsters under our skin. We could feel it together. I’ve never done that with anyone before._

_But I will not be a monster for you, Eve, just so you can deny the monster in yourself._

_I thought you would want it, Eve, but you said no. I did not like that. I made it go away. One of us had to be brave. ~~~~_

\---

She had told Villanelle that she wasn’t frightened of anything. An obvious lie. Eve may not be scared of death. But there are many more things to fear.

Eve is scared of feelings she cannot name, that stalk her dreams night and day, that lead her to want horrific things.

She is scared of tension that does not resolve, of clues that do not lead to answers, of answers revealed to be illusions. She is scared of the unknowable.

She is scared of Villanelle, though not as a killer. Somehow, she has made peace with that. But the woman who would keep her alive, annihilating her a thousand times over, breaking her softly, on whim, for fun? Eve is terrified of her. 

And she is scared of how she wants it regardless, wants Villanelle beyond all reason, always approaching her like it’s their first time, one hand raised in surrender and greeting, the other hand raised to offer her heart.

If only she had a word for it. Obsession. Love. Desire. Challenge. Insanity. Nothing comes close.

And without a word, Eve has no way to contain it. Without a container, she has no control.

So Eve stops walking toward her. Turns her back and walks away. Instructing Villanelle to return to character, follow the script, play her part.

At least Eve can say that someone killed the shit out of her.

\---

Eve is not scared of death.

This is a gift, she thinks, to know she is dying. To shake off the illusion that life can be mastered with the right choices, that death can be sidestepped and denied. All of the routines and responsibilities and attachments people conjure to pretend they can avoid the inevitable. Everyone knows it’s make-believe. Tooth fairies and Santa Claus.

It’s good to be done with that. It’s good to be done.

She feels her heart pick up its pace. Quickening as it does with desire. Hastening as it does with fear. Neither of those things matter now. Her heart is simply going through the motions, doing its job to the very end. She is impressed with its tenacity, its last-ditch effort to pump oxygen to organs, to keep them functioning, to keep her alive.

It only makes her bleed out faster.

Her head pounds. Her breath falters. Her eyes roll back and she loses her train of thought.

\---

_I knew it would end this way, Eve. I thought about it so much. I thought I would have my hands on your throat, or better yet, my knife through your heart. That is trickier than it sounds! But I would have done it for you, Eve, if you would have liked that. I think I would have liked it too._

_You didn’t give me what I wanted Eve, but that’s OK. I know what I’m doing. I have given you a slow death. You will like it, I think. I have given you the full experience, anticipation and dread and finely paced pain._

_It is my final gift to you, Eve, a suitcase full of amazing clothes! You always liked my gifts, didn’t you? It surprised me at first. And then it was fun. You were always full of surprises._

_I didn’t like the way you surprised me today, Eve. I was shocked. But I forgive you, Eve. We are even now. Don’t do it again, OK? You can’t do it again._

\---

One time, Villanelle told Eve what it was like to watch someone die.

“People think your soul or personality, whatever, leaves the body when you die,” she said. “I swear it just goes further in. It falls so far in and just... just becomes so small that it can't control your body anymore. It's just in there, tiny, forever.”

Why had she told this to Eve? To scare her probably. Or to seduce her. Eve could never really tell the difference. Either way, it hadn’t worked. Eve had found it comforting, like a bedtime story that helped her sleep. She didn’t know why.

Maybe it was the permission it promised, a free pass to shrink deep into herself, to move unreachable, to give up her body as a lost cause?

Or maybe it was the pledge of finality? Eve loved the assurance of a final ending, no rebirth, no afterlife, no greater cosmos to rejoin. To her that sounded like so much work. A cop-out too, like a TV show extended forever, when one or two seasons would have sufficed. Eve feels exhausted thinking it through.

No need to think anymore. Eve lets go and closes her eyes, waiting for her soul to sink further in.

\---

_I would have liked to stay for a while, Eve. I would have liked to have watched. You would look so beautiful ringed by blood and I could have locked my eyes with yours and dipped my fingers into your wound. I could have touched your soul. I could have felt you, Eve, spilling out all over my fingers and all of your lies would not matter anymore because I would know the truth of you, with my fingers, and you would know the truth of me._

_Even when I do not feel it, Eve, it does not mean it is not real._

\---

“People beg for their life,” Villanelle had told her another time. “I have a wife and children,” she mimicked, reducing their panic to cliché. Eve didn’t know why Villanelle found this funny, but she did agree it was strange.

Eve would never beg Villanelle for her life. Besides, what could she say?

“Please don’t kill me. I have you.” 

\---

_If I had you, Eve, what would I do with you? Oh, you know the things that I wanted to do, before you broke the muscle of my heart. I breathed them into your earpiece at night, all the ways I would have you and take you and break you and keep you. Did you think about knives as I came for you? Did you think about blood? Me too._

_But we shouldn’t think about sexy things right now, Eve! Later, OK? If I had you Eve, my sweet dying Eve, what would I do with you?_

_Would I keep you alive just to kill you again?_

_Would I run away and hide so you could find me? I think you liked that part the best. I would do it again, for you, if you wanted. I would do anything for you._

_I wouldn’t take you to Alaska, OK? You made that clear. I am not the stupid one here. I don’t really care about Alaska. I think it would be too cold. I could take you somewhere warmer if you would like. Where should we go?_

_Would you leave me again if I did that, Eve? Why would you want to leave me? You are so dramatic sometimes. I can’t let you do that, Eve. I can’t. It hurts. Please._

_I will let you die, OK? I can. I can. And I will mourn you in an amazing way. I will look beautiful and sad and I will wear the colors of grief and clothing that befits a gun-toting killer who shot her lover in the back. Yes, we are lovers, Eve, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. And I will grieve you as your lover, a striking figure that you cannot resist. Your beautiful broken assassin in black._

\---

Thoughts come in fragments now. Disconnected. Elena’s laughter. Strawberry lemonade. The rollercoaster at Brighton Pier.

Playing with her nephew long ago. 1-2-3-4, I declare a thumb war.

Villanelle’s veil.

Villanelle.

\---

So much wasted between them. So much enjoyed. Should she have kissed her? One time at least? No. Not that. It threatens her more than she understands. A woman undone. Even now, she doesn’t know why.

But Villanelle tore her apart anyway and left her here to bleed in the dust, so fuck it. Yes. One kiss. One undoing. How bad could it be? Not that it really matters now. Eve is surprised that she has no regrets. But it is a sweet fantasy all the same. An apt ending to a fucked-up tale. She breathes shallowly and imagines Villanelle’s goodbye kiss, her eyelids fluttering open and closed.

\---

_Oh Eve! This will be amazing. Nobody will mourn you as well as me! I will read books on loss, so I can feel it the normal way, the way that you want my feelings to be. You think feelings live in the heart, yes? You are amazingly stupid, Eve, for someone so smart. A heart is a thing like a kidney or gallbladder. It is not the keeper of feelings._

_But for you I will do it! I will mourn you from my heart. I will cry for you Eve, real tears even, and I will draw sketches of you to keep under my pillow, and I will have sex with strangers and pretend they are you. I will make you proud._

_Will you watch me, Eve, from wherever you go? Will you tell me if I get it right? I would like it if you would watch me with love, but you can watch me with anger if that’s how you like it. I will let you do anything, Eve. Just don’t ever stop watching, OK?_

\---

It’s a good way to leave this life, the daydream of Villanelle’s lips on hers.

And she is leaving now, flying, weightless, moving up through the evening air. Her soul is actually leaving her body. Ha! Villanelle was wrong. She’ll hate that. Eve wishes she could see her reaction. See her pout one more time.

And now Villanelle is everywhere, filling her senses as her thoughts shut down. Villanelle’s smell. Her touch. Her taste. No that’s not right. She didn’t taste her. Only in dreams.

But her sound, her voice. Oh, how she will miss her voice. Flicking through accents like a radio station before she finds the right one. Eve’s favorite. English with a Russian accent. The language that Villanelle loathes to use, asserting its presence regardless, inflecting the words that move through her lips. Unshakeable mother tongue.

\---

_Eve! No. What are you doing? I can feel you leaving. I can feel it with my fingers that won’t stop shaking. Stop it, Eve! Stop! I am coming back, ok? I will take you to Konstantin. Or Carolyn. I will get you help. I didn’t go far. I’m almost there. Just stop leaving me, OK? Just stop leaving._

\---

“Eve Polastri.” The way she said it! “Eve, Eve.” Villanelle taking her name in her mouth, rolling it over as something to taste, from throat to tongue, through teeth and lips. “Eve, Eve.” A soundtrack for the dying light.

\---

_Eve, Eve._

\---

Once, in college, she read an article about post-mortem spasms. Bodies can twitch a year after death. Cross their arms. Orgasm with electrical stimulation, if oxygen reaches the sacral nerve.

“Eve, Eve.” Villanelle’s voice making her twitch. Is there still oxygen? Isn’t she dead?

“Eve, Eve.”

Hallucinations of a fallen angel, riding in across the horizon, a near-death wish that she no longer has the lifeforce to suppress.

\---

 _Eve_.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the photos of Villanelle reading How to Get Over Your Ex. Let me know what you think!


End file.
